2010-02-08 Regular City Council Agenda

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them and can be used as a tax deduction. He said a not-for-profit agency can target kids in certain percentages from single parent homes, low-income homes and those with a good GPA and leadership skills. Kathy Straatmann, 6823 Crest Ms. Straatmann asked Council to pass the Youth Job program.She is an apartment manager and employs the youth of U City. She agreed with Mr. McCarthy that it should be expanded and guaranteed that it will be a success and will be expanded. COUNCIL COMMENTS Mr. Price presented background information on the Youth Initiative to the new faces. One is that this City provides $1.66 allocation per kid and essentially there is no money allocated from the budget for the youth.He noted that people are saying people are taking my tax money. Byron offered a quick lesson in government. The bulk of University City’s money comes from sales tax and as his kids and all kids do when they buy food, clothing and such, they pay sales tax. So the statement that we are taking their money is not true, as the youth of this town contribute to it too when they go shopping. Mr. Price stated that he gets distressed whenever people think that every African-American child is impoverished” every black child is poor, every black child is uneducated and every black child is at risk. Mr. Price stated that this program is opened to every student at the high school. It is a fallacy to make it the assumption that this program is for every poor kid or every bad kid. Mr. Price stated that the Home Improvement Program has been successful for many years and still is. People make decisions on where they spend their money as $80,000 for a state audit, hiring an attorney for $8,000 and he finds it ironic when we come to the children, we don’t have money. He stated that every Councilmember received this information, as he displayed his notebook, with the material given to all of the Council. The second question he heard was there was not a program description. This program has been laid out in detail and given to Council from November to January. Mr. Price stated that we have worked with Joy Lynn Wilson to be sure there was not any duplication. The last issue is what will be the outcome of the program. Mr. Price said the outcome is that the kids will have an opportunity to learn what things you don’t want to do and that inspires you to do the things you want to do. Finally Mr. Price said they ask for the details. Mr. Price asked to explain to him why all these young people are here and why we don’t help them when we only spend $1.66 a head. Mr. Price stated that every year there are more and more police cars at the high school. He said that if there are five police cars at the high school in the morning that is a misallocation of resources. After school the police are there for crowd control as the youth have no place to go and just stand around socializing. Lastly he believes that work builds character, supervisors who will encourage them to stay in school, so it has many benefits. Mr. Price stated the not-for-profit organizations concentration is on a small percentage of the City’s youth. He stated that this program is opened to all of the kids and the Urban League has come and said they would partner with the City. Mr. Price said we need to move forward as the Council has been talking about this since November. He said he was part of the Council when he encouraged the first Community Center as a place for the kids to go to and lights on Olive so kids can practice football when it turns dark early. Mr. Price did not want to hear that it can’t be done. He asked the Mayor for a show of hands as to who supports this initiative and who does not. Ms. Ricci stated she does not support this initiation. She said with 37,000 residents, 1740 are high school age of which 1,000 go to U City High School. She stated that this is asking 5